Steve Hicks holds one of the young ospreys.
Birds of prey rescued from Gulf Coast
Two birds of prey affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have made their way to Bubba and Friends Wildlife Rehabilitation outside Zebulon. The young ospreys were abandoned by their parents near the Mississippi coast and were unable to feed themselves.
“If the parents had been eating oil soaked fish it’s entirely possible it killed them,” said certified rehabilitator and director of Bubba and Friends Steve Hicks. “They’re between 4 and 6 weeks old and it’s very unusual for the parents to leave them unattended.”
The next step is teaching the birds how to fly and hunt in the habitats they need to become accustomed to in order to be successfully released into the wild. By the time they are released, the young ospreys will have six-foot wingspans but they will start flight training and fishing in two to three weeks. Hicks said Bubba and Friends needs two canoes, since john boats and motors frighten the birds, making catching them next to impossible. He’s hoping the canoes will be donated for the training.
“The main thing we need the canoes for is water rescue for the ospreys,” he said. “It takes them a few times to get the hang of fishing. They don’t have the maneuvering skills right away and when they hit the water they just sit there. Aluminum canoes would be perfect because we can make modifications so when we snatch the ospreys out of the water, we have somewhere to put them.”
The independently owned and operated 501c3 nonprofit rehabilitation center is not funded by state or federal programs and depends on donations to continue providing care for injured or malnourished birds of prey. For information or to make a donation, call 770-567-1852 or e-mail bubbanfriends01@yahoo.com.
For more, read the Wednesday, July 7 print/eEdition of The Pike County Journal-Reporter.
The next step is teaching the birds how to fly and hunt in the habitats they need to become accustomed to in order to be successfully released into the wild. By the time they are released, the young ospreys will have six-foot wingspans but they will start flight training and fishing in two to three weeks. Hicks said Bubba and Friends needs two canoes, since john boats and motors frighten the birds, making catching them next to impossible. He’s hoping the canoes will be donated for the training.
“The main thing we need the canoes for is water rescue for the ospreys,” he said. “It takes them a few times to get the hang of fishing. They don’t have the maneuvering skills right away and when they hit the water they just sit there. Aluminum canoes would be perfect because we can make modifications so when we snatch the ospreys out of the water, we have somewhere to put them.”
The independently owned and operated 501c3 nonprofit rehabilitation center is not funded by state or federal programs and depends on donations to continue providing care for injured or malnourished birds of prey. For information or to make a donation, call 770-567-1852 or e-mail bubbanfriends01@yahoo.com.
For more, read the Wednesday, July 7 print/eEdition of The Pike County Journal-Reporter.
While BP certainly has done a bad job of correcting this problem, I place the blame for this disaster directly on the shoulders of environmental groups. Hear me out:
Over the past 40-50 years, environmental groups have lobbied to pass stricter laws on where and when oil companies can drill. Take ANWR for example. Had we been drilling using this same method in ANWR, this disaster (and it is a disaster) would have been a non-event. The cleanup would have taken a week or two. Oil companies have been pushed further and further out into deeper water and forced to drill using untried techniques in deep water in order to continue to feed the world's need for oil.
That includes the environmentalists too. They use oil just as much as anyone else.
We need to develop sensible policies that do the following:
1 - Reduce America's dependence on foreign oil (drill in ANWR, clean coal, natural gas).
2 - Reduce the world's dependence on oil period (develop new energy sources and transportation methods, hybrid, pure electric).
3 - Provide a means and incentives to convert older automobiles to this new technology (by incentives I mean lower taxes on true "Green" technology companies that are developing new technology not just calling themselves Green and provide tax incentives to the people who take advantage of these "Green" companies technology)
4 - Change the transportation paradigm in the US by developing high-speed rail and a more dense commuter and transport rail systems.
BP shares the blame for this disaster along with the environmental groups and the US government.
My advice: Do whatever you can to reduce your oil usage. It's in everything. Plastic, automobiles (body parts), you name it, and most likely at some point in time, it was crude oil.
I agree with Sheila...lol (looks out the door to see if it has frozen over outside).
Monday morning quarterbacks agree on what BP woulda', coulda', shoulda' done. I'm sure they would love to have the chance to go back in time and do things differently. I doubt they enjoy shelling out $20B and I bet every other oil company is thanking God that it wasn't them.
Know what really sucks? There were and are Coast Guard skimmer boats that were prohibited from responding to this disaster, because there 'might' be another one somewhere else. The federal government declined offers of skimmer boats from foreign countries and private fleets. (Ironic, isn't it, that this administration were many of the same people who critisized the Bush administration for their slow response to Katrina.)
Bottom line: The US must do everything possible to reduce and remove dependence on foreign oil or we will concede our independce to the likes of madmen and despots like Chavez, Medvedev, Lula and Ahmadinijab. Guess we'll add that to our list of critical issues, like our huge deficit, impending socialized medicine and what to do with illegal immigrants.
Hussein took a few days off to play golf before going to the gulf, knowingly rejected the use of cleanup ships offered from around the world and still has done absolutely nothing but gripe and complain about the evil corporations and he's a hero.
We desperately need some actual news organizations in this country. Someone who reports the news and nothing but the news and doesn't try to entertain.
Love ya' most all of the time- and I even agree with you partially this time- but not totally.
I’m not denying BP’s culpability in this, nor am I diminishing the disastrous impact of the explosion of the Deep Water Horizon on our coastline.
My point is that you can't put a black hat on Tony Heyward and call it a day. It's not that simple and there's enough blame to go around- ALL the way around- BP, our government (don't even get me started there)and even us, as consumers, who demand easy access and cheaper prices on gas and products.
Did Heyward or the Board of Directors make the call to keep drilling when the drill made rubber or even push management to do so? I seriously doubt it- to think that people at that level in ANY large corporation would be that engaged in the day to day operations would be giving them WAY too much credit. He will pay with his job, and he should, because the buck stops with him. That's what he signed on for when he stepped up to be leader.
Drilling a mile under the ocean is expensive, complicated and risky. Why does our government prohibit drilling in equally oil rich areas, where the risk is magnitudes lower? Why did the Obama administration forbid the use of Coast Guard skimmers and turn down offers of skimmers from other countries and why were they so slow to respond? Why did federal environmental oversight officials (appointed under the Bush administration) deem BP’s five-page disaster plan as sufficient? Why didn’t the federal government have and/or use their own disaster action plan? Where are the tax incentives for R & D for alternative fuels and products? Why aren’t there more American-born Science majors and grad students in our colleges to develop future solutions?
We can boycott the corner BP station if we want to, but it's virtually impossible to avoid using any BP secondary products. We can sit back and wait for the big, bad corporation to make it all better, but that by itself is not going to close any of Pandora’s boxes. We can pass judgment on BP and/or Tony Heyward and go on with our lives if it makes us feel better, but to make such a cut-and-dried call ignores some major issues that we as a country are going have to face up to and deal with one day, one way or another.
We have to reduce our petroleum dependence overall, but we’re not even close to being there right now. Until then, our national security depends on our being as self-sufficient as possible and filling the farm team benches with good minds and resources. By no means will freedom from foreign oil guarantee our safety from despots and Muslim extremists, but it’ll close one very big gap. As long as they control our oil supply, they’ve got us by the short hairs.
‘Nuff said. Night-night, y’all!
You ask a very thought-provoking question. I don't think any of us could even begin to comprehend what it would be like if there was no more oil all of a sudden. In short, I think it would be something like Little House on the Prarie and Toombstone meet Mad Max. (i.e. New Orleans after Katrina)
The gas we had on hand would become pricesless and many would result to violence to get it. Food supplies would quickly grind to a halt. There would be widespread raiding and looting of inventories. Panic would set in, because most people in society have no idea how to grow their own food and aren't used to living without creature comforts.
There would probably be a breakdown in the fabric of society, because the morals, religious convictions and altruism of our parents and grandparents that held society together during the Great Depression are mostly absent in today's generation. Without that, it's every man for himself and Darwinism in action.
Like in any crisis, there would be heroes and people would eventually adapt and rise above, but it wouldn't happen overnight, and life would be very different.
Speaking of heroes, the people at Friends Wildlife Rehab are heroes for what they do to help these and all the injured animals they care for. They are to be commended and celebrated for making our world a better place.
I think BP dropped their moral compass
when they short-cut the sealing procedure in order to expedite the pumping process at a later date. All those lives, all those families, all the livelihoods of the businesses, that beautiful coastline, all those beautiful animals and fish, etc. All that and more, to save a little time on pumping the old liquid gold out A LITTLE QUICKER. I wonder if they would have done things a little different in retrospect. I'll bet they would be willing to lose that chest-bumping contest they dominated in the "Old Conference Room" that morning. I hope the families of the Gulf suck BP dry faster than the oil 'Is still shooting into the gulf.
BP sucks.
My thanks also goes out to all the volunteers working on the cleanup efforts in the Gulf. There are thousands of volunteers cleaning the beaches and trying to help mitigate some of the affects of this disaster.
As much as I dont like some of your posts I still read them and respect your right to post and think your posts and inputs and others are still good to read. It is what keeps these sites going. Did you notice I did not say I did not dislike everything you post. LOL I love the freedom of speech and heck some of these posts really need to be read they are things that could not be said publically without some really radical groups really going off. These sites really allow us to really speak our minds and sometimes that just feels good to be able to do that. Heck half the time when I post it is not how I feel but posting just things that should be said and then want to hear how others feel.